BIRTHPLACE OF A NATION

For over 300 years Massachusetts has produced com-
modities such as history and heroes, shoes and ships, rum
and revolution, textiles and text-books, leather goods and
literature . . . the list is endless.
The "Bay State" has sent two
Adamses and a Kennedy to the White
House and countless others to fame. Her
farmers and villagers took on the armed
might of Great Britain in 1775, her
whaling ships carried the Yankee flag
to the seven seas, her mills were in the
vanguard of the Industrial Revolution
a century ago, and now her sophisticated
technology is in the forefront of the electronics and space age.

A FEW FACTS AND FIGURES.
Named after the Massachuset Indians, it was one of the 13 original states. America's vast steel and iron industry began at the Saugus ironworks 130 years before the Revolutionary War.
Today Massachusetts is one of the great
industrial states, ranking first in the production of leather,
shoes, and woolen goods. It grows most of the nation's
cranberries and is a world leader in the canning and pro-
cessing of fish. The state can boast of America's first print-
ing press, newspaper, and library — the first secondary
school, Boston Latin School — and first college, Harvard.
In Cambridge, 1845, Elias Howe invented the sewing ma-
chine; in Boston, 1875, Alexander Graham Bell invented
the telephone; and in Springfield, 1893, the Duryea brothers
invented the first successful gasoline automobile.

GEOGRAPHICALLY SPEAKING. Glacier-scarred, most
of the land away from the Coastal Lowlands is rough and
hilly. The farms are small, the best being located in the
Connecticut River Valley. With an area of 8,093 square
miles, it ranks 45th in size and 9th in population among the
50 states. About half its 5,148,578 inhabitants live in the
Boston metropolitan area.

IT ALL BEGAN LONG AGO. The search for religious
freedom brought the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620 and
the Puritans to Salem and Boston in 1628. Boston, founded
in 1630, never lost its position of leadership in the devel-
opment of the new world. Colonists from Boston established
settlements throughout the rest of New England.
 

ETC ETC